Compromise On Muhlenberg Off-campus Housing Plan Fails * City Wants College To Move Some Students Into An Expanded Housing Zone.

September 13, 1997|by JOE MCDERMOTT, The Morning Call

A last-ditch effort between Allentown City Hall and Muhlenberg College to compromise on student housing has fallen through, with each side blaming the other for the failure.

College President Arthur Taylor accused Mayor William L. Heydt Friday of twice reneging on a deal to expand the college's institutional-government zoning district in exchange for college acceptance of an overlay zoning district that would limit students' off-campus housing.

But Heydt said the college refused to accept an important part of the proposal -- an agreement to pull at least half of the 180 or so students now living off campus back into the expanded zone within a specified time period.

"They want to receive. They don't want to give anything," Heydt said. "The big thing is (Taylor) thinks I can make a deal. I can only sell a deal to council and the community. I can't sell anything that one-sided."

Taylor and college attorney Maxwell Davison say the proposed overlay zone is unconstitutional. "We believe the compromise is also illegal, but we are willing to live with it to prevent World War III with the city," Taylor said.

Taylor said the college will fight the overlay zoning to the U.S. Supreme Court, if necessary. It will also take economic sanctions against the city, such as refusing to deal with Allentown businesses, he said.

City administrators in July proposed the overlay district to restrict the number of students allowed to live in homes outside the campus zone. City Council will hold a public hearing on the proposal at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Muhlenberg at the time vowed to fight the ordinance, but city and college officials have been working for several weeks to reach a compromise that would relieve the noise, litter, parking and misbehavior problems cited by neighborhood property owners who live near the students.

Taylor said he could not accept something he can't control -- the demand to move students back to college-owned homes.

"We are willing to do that on a best-efforts basis," Taylor said in a telephone interview from his Connecticut home. "But we don't know that the properties will be available."

According to an Aug. 22 memo from city Community Development Director Ross P. Marcus to college officials, the I.G. zone would have expanded along Liberty Street between Muhlenberg to Leh streets and the block bounded by Gordon, N. 23rd, Liberty and Leh streets. It would have added 85 homes to the I.G. zone that the college could have bought and used for student housing, Heydt said.

That memo also said the compromise depended on returning students to the campus. Heydt said no time frame was established, but he would have been satisfied if it was accomplished within five years.

Heydt said he did forget to mention that aspect of the deal in a meeting with Taylor on Tuesday. He called college officials later to remind them it was still a requirement, the mayor said.

Heydt and Marcus said any compromise would have required acceptance from local homeowners. Community leaders were aware of the negotiations, Marcus said.

Marcus said college officials wanted the city to delay passage of the overlay district until the I.G. zone expansion was ready, something the city was not willing to do.

Davison said concurrent approval for both ordinances is considered vital to the college.

"We never wanted a confrontation with Muhlenberg," said Marcus, who has been working with the college, local residents and council members for more than a year. "We had ample time to work out a compromise. The reason we proposed the (overlay) legislation is because there didn't seem to be a hope for a compromise."